Strip builder extraordinare

Live vicariously and consider the SOF style boat

Down to earth builder who enjoys his work

High-quality Fiberglass Kayak Construction

About BearboatSP

BearboatSP is finally out of beta. It is the successor to BearboatPro. The program is for designing and building custom kayaks and canoes.

BearboatSP evolved from BearboatPro and much of the program is identical. Major changes include more powerful stability evaluation tools, an improved method for specifying the deck profile in Sideview, and more convenient ways to both start a new design and return to work on older designs. John Winters’ KAPER analysis has been added. Designs previously created in BearboatPro can be opened in BearboatSP and will be automatically converted to the new format that is used for BearboatSP designs.

The current version of BearboatSP is not compatible with the old PowerPC chip on the Macintosh side. If you only have an old PowerPC Mac (non-Intel Mac), then you can use BearboatPro or, as a better choice, you can use the last version of BearboatSP that was capable of running on the PowerPC chip. It is available on the left panel. It will see no further upgrades or bug fixes.

There is some new functionality of BearboatSP under a Menu called Tweak. This part of the code is under active development and might be considered to still be in beta. I have used it, but it is not extensively tested. The manual describes some of its use.

A manual for BearboatSP has been posted. It is available for download as a PDF (see left panel). It will be seeing changes over the next few months as more documentation is created.

Please report bugs. The more “reproducible” they are, the easier to fix. If you have ideas of how BearboatSP could be improved, drop me an email. (rlivingston@me.com)

BearboatPrint / BearboatPrintMacPC

When it comes time actually to build a kayak, BearboatSP creates files called xsBBPF (cross-section BearBoatPrintFiles) that contain the information needed to produce a life-size paper templates for any cross-section. To print out these cross-sections, a separate program is needed that is capable of reading and processing xsBBPF files. For a long time, that was just BearboatPrint. It is a PC only program which made it awkward for Mac users who had to find a friend with a PC or use a PC emulation program to actually get paper templates.

At long last, I have written a new program for printing out the paper templates. This program is available for both Mac and PC users. It is called BearboatPrintMacPC. I continue to supply the original BearboatPrint software. It is time-tested and might be more reliable or work better in somebody's particular environment. These programs are a little tricky to write because everyone has different printers, printer drivers, and operating systems so it is hard to test them thoroughly. Mac users should download the BearboatPrintMacPC program and use that to get the paper templates needed for actually building a boat. PC users, theoretically, could use either one. I think that BearboatPrintMacPC is capable of accommodating printers with a wider range of paper sizes.

I would very much like to hear people experiences with the use of these programs so I become aware of problems. I recently (11/25/15) fixed a bug that had lingered there for years because finally someone complained. Drop me a note about printouts, even if it was successful! (rlivingston@me.com).

Security

As the cyber world has become more threatening, there are increasing "protections" put in place for dealing with apps downloaded over the Internet. On the Macintosh, your settings might be such that the first time you try double-clicking on the BearboatSP program or BearboatPrintMacPC program, the operating system will tell you that it won't open these programs because of your security settings. If instead you right-click on the program, there will be an Open option and that will allow you override this setting and start the program for the first time.

(It will warn you that the application is from an "unknown" developer. I may be unknown but my address is below so you can find me 🙂).